1. Technical Field
The present invention is directed to managing a large distributed computer network. More particularly, the present invention is related to the field of application management in a large enterprise network.
2. Description of the Related Art
Enterprises now desire to place all of their computing resources on a computer network. To this end, it is known to connect computers in a large, geographically-dispersed network environment and to manage such an environment in a distributed manner. One such management framework, the Tivoli Managed Environment™, comprises a server that manages a number of nodes, each of which has a local object database that stores object data specific to the local node. Each managed node typically includes a management framework, comprising a number of management routines, that is capable of a relatively large number (e.g., hundreds) of simultaneous network connections to remote machines. The framework manages hundreds of megabytes of local storage and can spawn many dozens of simultaneous processes to handle method requests from local or remote users. Of these nodes, only a small percentage are file servers, name servers, database servers, or anything other than end-of-wire or endpoint machines. The majority of the network machines are simple personal computers (PCs) or workstations that see little management activity during a normal day.
Among the many features of the Tivoli ME system is the use of a lightweight client framework (“LCF”). The LCF is software that runs on an endpoint computer and that allows the management system to communicate with and manipulate the client computer. The LCF includes a query agent that starts up and executes as needed to respond to management queries directed to the node. In the LCF, preferably the storage of management data on the client computer is substantially eliminated. An LCF-supported client is thus sometimes referred to as “dataless”. This architecture minimizes the chance of corruption of management data by users.
Management operations on a dataless client, e.g., installing new software or checking memory usage, are often performed on a machine as a whole. However, there are often applications or subsystems running on a machine that require a finer granularity of management as combined to the overall machine. These applications typically are those that have multiple installations or “instances” running independently. An example is a relational database system where multiple database instances of the application service different business applications (e.g., accounting and human resources). To manage these applications, it is desirable and often necessary to target operations at a specific application instance. As noted above, however, to conserve resources, the local query agent typically is only started upon receipt of the management query. When started, this routine does not necessarily know about the different application instances that may be executing on the machine, which complicates the management operation.
The present invention addresses this problem.